‘’Power corrupts absolutely and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Great men are always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority. ‘’ Lord Acton

So what are your thoughts on your manager?

A traditional manager is in charge of your daily life at work. They control your salary, your workload, your appraisals, the criticism you get, the hours you put in the office, and whether you get to keep your job or not.
But if you step aside from the traditional views of management and what a manager should be and take a look at your company from a birds view perspective you might be able to adopt a few of the things we hold sacred when it comes to the management teams at Causeway Connect.

What does it take to be a manager at Causeway, what are our tactics and strategies, and do we have a DO NOT PANIC button in our offices you ask?

Let’s take it to step by step.

First, we begin by drawing a line between management and totalitarianism…we always believe that is a good place to start 🙂

Do you trust your manager? I asked myself this question following a few others in between: Would I be able to talk to my manager if I wanted to spend one day off work for the next month working on my ego project, or my master thesis? Would I be able to speak to my manager about working from home on the days I felt like the office was too far away and PJs seemed like the only clothes I wanted to wear? Would I be able to tell her that I had another job offer or that someone was trying to recruit me? Would she fight for me? Would she sponsor me and the work I have done? Does she help me out when there is too much to do too close to the deadline? Does she teach me? Is she open to hearing out my ideas? Does she offer to stay after hours when I am stuck in the office to help out?

And the answer in my case was: yes.

Of course, not everyone has had the same experience at their job, which is why it is important to establish a difference between the type of management and the type of managers.
We have all experienced the frustration of a controlling manager and the frustration of controlling people who just won’t listen, hence it is important to find out the reason behind those examples.
At Causeway, we are always thought by our directors that we need to think and act like the owners of the company, not its employees. But as such, not only do we have authority to act upon but also a responsibility that we can and will be held accountable for. As the quote states above, where lord Acton carved out the famous saying on absolute power, we must acknowledge that those in authority must be held to higher standards than the rest. That is what differentiates management from totalitarianism. That is why even today, almost two years after I first stepped foot in Causeway Connect, with an empty notepad and a wild ambition, I have no doubt that the answer to all the questions I asked myself above, would be yes.

So if all managers act upon this rule, why is it that in every story the antagonist of the fairytale is the manager?

Is it solely the manager’s fault? Who is responsible truly for creating hierarchies? Who runs the crazy house? And are humans naturally programmed to defer to authority, power and their local desires, and if so will we ever be able to build a working environment without fibre of mistrust?